Database Develop

Help required (apps2sd) - can't see /system/sd

I had to reset my phone today, since for some odd reason, I switched it off and back on, and it wouldnt get back the flashing android screen (havent even made any changes to it recently, God knows why it decided to do this).
Anyway, I figured, format the phone, reflash JF 1.5, and then move apply apps2sd (I already have my apps on my SD card, just have to link them back to the phone so it can see them), and the small customisations I can do later, I would get my phone back to functioning level.
I am using these instruction from SDK on my computer:
1. Check if your phone is recognised.
adb devices
2. Mount the phone into ADB.
adb remount
3. Bring up the shell.
adb shell
4. Check if /system/sd is visible.
df
5. Skip this step if you already have your apps on SD.
cp -a /data/app /system/sd
6. Skip this step if you already have your app-private on SD.
cp -a /data/app-private /system/sd
7. Remove the current apps folder on device.
rm -r /data/app
8. Remove the current app-private folder on device.
rm -r /data/app-private
9. Link the app folder on sd to the one on device.
ln -s /system/sd/app /data/app
10. Link the app-private folder on sd to the one on device.
ln -s /system/sd/app-private /data/app-private
11. Finally Reboot.
reboot
Well, I can flash the phone fine, but when I am trying to follow the instructions for relinking the apps from SD to the phone (stage 4), it doesnt show /system/sd, instead it shows /sdcard.
Does this mean I should change the following steps to say 'sdcard' instead of '/system/sd'? I have tried this with no luck, shows me the android screen indefinitely.
I have an ext2 partition on the phone on which I have my apps, I have done this whole process before many times, but not for a while so I am missing something important.
And I am skipping steps 5 and 6, since I have already got all my apps on my SD card.
Any help would be must appreciated, this is wasting quite a bit of my time.
PS: the only thing I have changed since I last did this, was I flashed the phone with a google ion build, while it had JF 1.5 on it. What I did notice after that was the phone ran a lot slower. That is the only change I can think of which separates this process working perfectly previously, and not at all now.

Um reformat your entire card to fat32. And then use cyanogen's recovery 1.31. to split your sd into 2 partitions. Msg me on gtalk or by email and I'll help you out

Many thanks for the reply.
Hmm I would have thought a reformat of the SD card would be last resort, is there no way to sort this out without going down that route?

Don't think there's another way, You could try switching ROMS see if that fixes it...

Might not need to reformat it all just yet.. Been awhile since I used JF, but I don't think it automatically mounts /system/sd
I think you might need the init.rc from this post -- http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=512743
Personally - and I try not to be preach about it, but I think CM users can't help that -- I'd suggest trying CyanogenMod since you're reflashing anyway. It isn't quite as stock as JF, but it is rock solid and fast, and it should pickup your existing A2SD partition automatically.

Agreed with Saiboogu. Try out Cyanogen's ROM you will NOT regret it

Ok, I am up for that.
BTW, when I format my phone (Alt+W I believe), and start it up again, its firmware is still upgraded.
If I reflash with a ROM, will that cause any problems or slowing, will it be overwriting anything? I guess I dont quite understand what the formatting of the phone is doing, and what it is leaving behind, and then what reflashing with a ROM is doing on top of that.
Also,m when you say Cyanogen's rom will do apps2sd automatically..how? Will it recognise the apps currently on the ext2 partition of my SD card? It wont delete them will it?

It will not delete them. It uses bind mounts to automatically do the apps to sd . Just wipe and flash

Ok, giving it a try now.
Hmm something I should have asked beforehand, my partition is ext2, do I need to change that to ext3 before I flash the cyanogen ROM?

Like alritewhadeva said - it just recognizes your existing apps.
A wipe clears out all the custom data.. Your settings, application data in the /data partition, your google account data that is synced to the phone. It doesn't touch the actual OS, which is why your ROM is still installed after a wipe.
With that said.. Cyanogen builds can be "broken" if you wipe after a flash. So always either just flash, or wipe *then* flash.

PERFECT! its worked like a charm! no hassle at all!

Great! You won't regret it.

one problem I have noticed, my camera keeps force closing (wont even start up without force closing straight away).
Any solution to this? Have tried going into the camera app in applications manager and clearing defaults, but no defaults were set.

That one sounds familiar, but I can't find an actual reference to it right now. Probably want to search the Cyanogen thread for mentions: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=518851
Also keep an eye out for updates - Cyanogen is prolific, and will probably get one released sometime this evening. It may fix the issue.

That one sounds familiar, but I can't find an actual reference to it right now. Probably want to search the Cyanogen thread for mentions: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=518851
Also keep an eye out for updates - Cyanogen is prolific, and will probably get one released sometime this evening. It may fix the issue.
Edit: Ah, here it is - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=536687
He says he had to wipe his SD card, repartition and everything. Not sure if that is your issue or not.

Ah I posted a fix for that just take the camera.apk from an older cyanogen build (3.6.5) and push it over.
so put the camera.apk on sdcard
su
mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
cd sdcard
cp Camera.apk /system/app
reboot

I am afraid due to my pathetic ignorance of how android works, I cant decipher what you said.
How do I get the camera apk? And once I acquire it, and put it on my SD card (I am assuming not in any folder, just on the main directory of the card), I use the terminal emulator to type in those commands?

well thats rather funny, just switched my phone on and off and the camera is working now.

raukodur said:
well thats rather funny, just switched my phone on and off and the camera is working now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well then awesome

Great that you got it working. For future reference (because these things do happen occasionally), alritewhadeva was suggesting that you download an older version of CM (link on his build thread), unzip it and find the camera.apk file. Then place that file on your sd card, and follow his directions in Terminal Emulator on the phone.

new memory card works but cannot mount for rw

so i just got a new TOPRAM 16gb sd card and yes i know cheap cheap. but whatever...anyways it works on my g1 and the g1 can read the files on it and i can mount it so my comp can see it but when i run the command
Code:
mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
it just says something like invalid something and fails to mount. im not sure what the problem is considering the memory card works on my phone as well as computer and can be mounted threw android ui instead of code so wtf?
plus its giving me trouble with certain adb commands

That command not working has nothing to do with your new sdcard.
Are you rooted? If so your gonna need to give people more info (like the error message). If not then that's your problem.

im pretty sure it does because ive used it manytimes before when i needed to considering ive been playing with different roms for awhile now and yes, i am rooted and all that. usually that command always works for me, whether it be thru terminal, recovery, or adb. and that only changed once i put this new card in. its no big deal, cuz it works and everything. but I just dont understand why i cant mount it for rw

How Do I move a certain app back to internal memory?

I have partitioned sd card and I have the hello im apk on the sd and I want it on my phone because it wont let me change my buddy pic it says please make sure your sd card is in the phone so Im going to try to put it back on internal storage to see if it works. So how do I move it? I parted with apps2sd but the app wont work with cyan 4.0.1 so how Do I move it?

Apps2sd is really an all or nothing proposition. You can't have one app on internal memory and the rest on the SD card.
If you want to get rid of apps2sd altogether I can tell you how to move everything back.
OTOH, if an app is complaining about the sd card it's probably talking about the fat32 partition that it wants to store images on. Is your fat32 close to being full or something?

on a side note im on cyan 4.0.1 I was at 3.6.8.1 when I used the apps2d app and now when I try to open it it says Oops! Looks like you need to go through the tutorial to set up apps to sd. Please go to blah blah blah why is it doing this
what do I have to do to get this app running gain I already haves apps going to sd.

The top part of Cyanogen's stable thread says not to use any other method of apps to sd because his has a script built in.
So. Stop fiddling with whatever apps2sd app you have.
go to terminal and type:
Code:
su
ls /dev/block/mm*
Tell me what you see. (And please take a moment to make your posts a little more readable, I'm having a hard time deciphering what you're asking/saying. )

what Am I suppost to do? I dont want to do it without knowing

open the application 'terminal emulator' -- this is like the dos 'command prompt' in windows or a term window in Linux
type 'su' and press enter -- this Switches User to root, or the administrator of the machine (your phone)
type 'ls /dev/block/mm*' -- 'ls' is 'list' directories. /dev is where all the devices are, block is hard-drive like devices (your internal memory and the sd card) and mm* is every block device that starts with 'mm....' which should be mmcblk0 (the sdcard), mmcblk0p1 (the fat32 partition) and mmcblk0p2 (the ext partition)
If the last exists, the cyanogen automatic apps2sd will have already moved all your applications there. If only one exists, it means you either formatted the whole SD card to ext2 for apps2sd (and left nothing fat32) or formatted none of it and your apps are already on your phone.
if your 'ls /dev/block/mm*' says that you have a mmcblk0p2, than run "ls /system/sd/app/*" and you should see a bunch of files ending in .apk. If so, then you have to undo apps2sd to get the Hello IM app back to internal memory.
Report back on the outputs of the above and further instructions will be provided.

Ok Iv done all that so how do I undo them and if so how will I get them back?

Tell me what all that said back when you typed it in. THEN I can tell you what to do.

I see all my apk files now what? I want to move that 1 app onto the phone memory and every other apk on the sd. Im ready for the next step.

I see a bunch of files ending in .apk now what?

Hmm. I just looked up 'Hello IM!' and see that it's a paid app.
So, we can move just paid apps to the internal memory and leave the free ones on the sd card.
if yes run the following in terminal emulator:
su
rm /data/app-private
mkdir /data/app-private
cp /system/sd/app-private/* /data/app-private
Copying the apps may not work and you may have to uninstall/reinstall, but when you install them they'll be on the internal memory.
Oh, but cyanogenmod will put them back on the sd card when you reboot, so if having the app on the internal memory does fix the problem, you'll have to edit the a2sd script.

The problem isn't that your apps are on the sdcard. The app itself doesn't know. Your partions may be out of whack or the app itself may just need to be reinstalled.
When your apps are on the sdcard they are on a different partition then what every app uses your sdcard for. Not sure if I wrote that where you can comprehend it or not...

wat do u mean out of wack

PsychoI3oy said:
If you want to get rid of apps2sd altogether I can tell you how to move everything back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've done some searching, and haven't found any way to do this that has worked for me. Could you please pass some of this info along?
Thanks.

HowTo - un-apps2sd (on CyanogenMod)
Ok, this is based on the assumption that you are running a Cyanogen rom. I'm sure it could be adopted for use on another one, but Cyanogen 4.0.x is what I'm running. You'll probably have to re-install any paid apps (app-private) but normal apps should run fine after this.
Instructions for use with adb:
Code:
adb remount
adb push a2sd.txt /system/bin/a2sd
adb shell
# rm /data/app
# mkdir /data/app
# cp /system/sd/app/* /data/app/
# rm /data/app-private
# mkdir /data/app-private
# cp -r /system/sd/app-private/* /data/app-private
# reboot
for terminal emulator, assuming the new a2sd.txt is on your sdcard:
Code:
mount -o rw,remount /system
mount -o rw,remount /data
cp /sdcard/a2sd.txt /system/bin/a2sd
and then continue the adb instructions from after 'adb shell'
after reboot you can confirm that it worked by running:
ls -l /system
from terminal emulator (no need to remount/su) and you should see 'app' and 'app-private' as directories (and not app -> /system/sd/app).
If you're running some other a2sd method, you'll have to edit/remove the script that's doing the linking, then delete the symlinks and copy back (should be similar to above).
The modified a2sd.txt attached just takes away the apps-to-sd part. Dalvik-cache is still run from /system/sd/ as are whatever other magical juicy bits he's got in there.
If you upgrade to another Cyanogen rom, the new version of a2sd will get pushed and everything will be moved back. The only way to get rid of it permanently would be to delete the ext2/3/4 partition on your sd card.
If you decide you want apps2sd again and don't want to upgrade, just put the a2sd.orig.txt back as /system/bin/a2sd and reboot, it'll automagically move everything back to the /system/sd/app on your ext partition.
I just did the un-apps2sd then put the original back and everything's fine (and was fine with un-apps2sd).
That should cover most things....

Thank you so much for the step by step instructions.
One minor correction, maybe, shouldn't there be a '/' at the end of the second to last line?
Also, for me I didn't copy over the modified a2sd.txt file. After I copied everything to internal I shutdown the phone and deleted the ext partition. All seems to be working well!
Thanks again.

daveerickson said:
Thank you so much for the step by step instructions.
One minor correction, maybe, shouldn't there be a '/' at the end of the second to last line?
Also, for me I didn't copy over the modified a2sd.txt file. After I copied everything to internal I shutdown the phone and deleted the ext partition. All seems to be working well!
Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Trailing slashes are optional in most shells, including this one.
Glad it worked for you.

these doesn't seem to be working for 4.2.1, no a2sd file exists in /system/bin, maybe he moved it somewhere else, i'm trying to find it but i'm not being lucky.
any help?

No, he broke up the bits that were in a2sd and spread them across several files in /system/etc/init.d/
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php/Removing_Apps2SD has the instructions now.

[Q] Unable to symlink

For weeks now, I have been trying to symlink /mnt/sdcard/external_sd/eBooks to /mnt/sdcard/eBooks by entering this command at the Android Terminal Emulator:
Code:
ln -s /mnt/sdcard/external_sd/eBooks /mnt/sdcard/eBooks
I always get a "link failed Operation not permitted" error. I've tried to got 'su' with the same result. Can anyone help me?

Help needed
Bumpty-bump... Anyone? Please?

RFS is a FAT based filesystem.. FAT32/NTFS doesn't support symlinks.
You could try one of the fancy lagfixes which convert the filesystem to EXT2/3/4, however, keep in mind, there is the risk that doing so may cause IMEI corruption or other problems.

Thanks, mate. I get it now. This was driving me crazy...

andrewluecke said:
RFS is a FAT based filesystem.. FAT32/NTFS doesn't support symlinks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the issue that after moving from Eclair to Froyo, the "folder" link to the external SD card has changed which means my restored apps do not work.
Before the link was /sdcard/sd and now it's sdcard/external_sd. I still have an "sd" folder in the internal sd but now it's just a regular folder - how do I make it so it's a link/jump to the external card (which the external_sd folder is which again means it must mean symlinking or equivalent works.)

[Q] How to Mount Read Only External SDCard?

Is there a way to force mount my external SD card as read only? I'm fed up of constant loss of music and the lost.dir file going up. I have tried all sort of troubleshooting, this is just an android problem ( I never had an issue with my blackberry ).
I don't use my external SD memory for anything else since the phone has built in 16GB anyways, and was hoping there is a way to lock writes to the external card. I am rooted. Thanks!

You should be able to use root explorer or a pc, and change the properties of your music folder to read only. Root explorer option is under permissions with a long press on the folder, groups needs write unchecked, not sure what a read only sd card will do, might generate errors, not sure. Quick question, did you reformet the card using the cards format option when you moved it out of your blackberry?
Droid 1 Rooted (ChevyNo1 0.9MV Kernel, LGB2.6)
Droid 3 Rooted (Stock Kernel, Custom lite De-bloat)

verkerria said:
You should be able to use root explorer or a pc, and change the properties of your music folder to read only. Root explorer option is under permissions with a long press on the folder, groups needs write unchecked, not sure what a read only sd card will do, might generate errors, not sure. Quick question, did you reformet the card using the cards format option when you moved it out of your blackberry?
Droid 1 Rooted (ChevyNo1 0.9MV Kernel, LGB2.6)
Droid 3 Rooted (Stock Kernel, Custom lite De-bloat)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This ^ You could also do it via a command prompt or disk management. Depends on your skill set.

You can't set those properties on an SD Card. I will try to set the read-only checkmark on the filesystem, but it is FAT32 and file permissions aren't very good... I tried using an NTFS filesystem to no avail...

busybox mount -o remount,ro /mnt/sdcard-ext , it could be added to /system/bin/loadpreinstalls.sh for a permanent solution.

Could we just change permissions on the folder we keep music in? That way the phone can still write to the card if needed
I tried running chmod 055 /sdcard-ext/Music but when I check the permission in my file manager nothing has changed
Sent from my rooted xt860

Endroid,
The problem is that the FAT32 filesystem is too basic for anything including file permissions. The filesystem becomes corrupted because it isn't being properly dismounted (for whatever reason), so even if you denied write access to specific files using a different file system, I'm sure the the corruption would still happen.

danifunker said:
Endroid,
The problem is that the FAT32 filesystem is too basic for anything including file permissions. The filesystem becomes corrupted because it isn't being properly dismounted (for whatever reason), so even if you denied write access to specific files using a different file system, I'm sure the the corruption would still happen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So ultimately no matter what I do my music is gonna keep moving to lost.dir. even if I reformat to NFTS
Sent from my rooted xt860

The phone doesn't even read NTFS... It only takes FAT32 as the SDCard. The best option is the one that was outlined by eww245, mounting the card as a read-only to avoid file corruption.
Although I am relieved to see that my device isn't the only one that is experiencing this sort of issue.

has anyone tried remount the sdcard-ext yet. does it work and did it cause any issues?
also will this affect the usb transfer
edit: seem to be getting alot of high CPU usage warnings. gonna try a reboot to see if it will fix, then rerun command

Did a reboot and reran the command. No CPU issues now, however already some files have moved into lost.dir. i have no experience writing/editing scripts. If anybody wants to write a quick script i could set to run on boot that would be appreciated.

Actually someome earlier mentioned to throw that into the loadpreinstall.sh under /system/bin
But there seems to be a caveat. If you plug the phone in through USB when the phone gets unplugged the device will get re-mounted. I'd like to change the properties of the internal mount instead of overwriting it each time. I have done a lot of checking around and found the vold.fstab file but don't really know how it works.
Another point of interest, what kind of MicroSD card are you using? I've got a Lexar 32GB SDHC10 card installed.

Lexar 16GB 4.
Do I just put
Busybox mount -o remount,ro /mnt/sdcard-ext
At the end of the script?
Sent from my rooted xt860

So this may be completely unrelated, but I ran the command Sunday, and my CPU went nuts. Rebooted tried again and all was good. Didn't use my phone much that day. Today(Monday) my phone died in 4 hours! I did notice my CPU seemed busier than normal. Did a bit of twitter websurfing then my phone went in my pocket for use as a music player. I use my phone with headphones everyday for music for 4-5 hours and I still have at least 30-40 battery left. Only got 3 hours of music. Now, is it possible that my music player(poweramp) is trying to write to the card, or someother app/system process is trying to write to the card, and since it can't it keeps trying. Is there a log I can pull on adb to figure this out? Has anyone else tried this and experienced anything similar?
Sorry for the ramble but I wanna get this figured out
Sent from my rooted xt860